


In another universe

by orphan_account



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, M/M, Spencer is underage at the beginning of this, there's a god h8's fags reference in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 13:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8626468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In another universe we’re soulmates, but here the timing is just a little wrong. I’m sorry.





	

He fell in love with a boy once. Spener would have called him his soul mate, if he believed in soulmates. But he didn’t. That would statistically impossible and irresponsible of him.

 

They were young and between the shows they put on for their parents, his parents mostly, and teachers they shared kisses before Spencer had to run home to be with his mother.

 

At the spelling bee when Spencer was in fourth grade, and he was going against all of the middle school kids, he let Spencer win. Spencer knew that he knew how to spell ‘deductible’ because that was one of the words that Spencer quizzed him on when he snuck into Spencer's bedroom the night before. But he didn’t know that Spencer knew that.  

 

Their school sent the third runner up to the regional spelling bee because he refused to go without Spencer and Spencer couldn’t leave his mom behind. Even for a night alone with the older boy. He told Spencer that he should tell someone about his mom and that he’d be better off in foster care. Even though Spencer didn’t know the intricacies of the foster care system he’s mad that he would even suggest such a thing.

 

They don’t talk for a long time unless they’re forced together by some sort of academic competition.

 

Until he got expelled from school for fighting.

 

One night at 11:11 he tapped hot cross buns onto Spencer’s window. Spencer couldn’t remember why he was mad at him anymore so he let him in through the tiny window that creaked when it opened and watched, with sleep in his eyes, as the other boy tried to find a place in the tiny bedroom among all of the stacks of books.

 

He looked broken, in the dark moonlight and Spencer didn’t see it at first but he was bleeding. There were spots on his shirt, and dried blood on those lips that Spencer had once kissed softly during the sunset, in the treehouse behind his house when Spencer was too young to even be thinking about kissing.

 

“Tommy was talking shit about you,” he offered softly.

 

Spencer frowned.

 

“He was nice to me the other day...” because he couldn’t tell the difference then between the fake nice, and the real nice. Not then at least.

 

But, even though he didn’t understand. He dug the first aid kit that he used to patch up his mom when she had her incidents, from the bathroom and patched up his face.

Even when his face was heeled Spencer isn’t. He felt empty, walking into the halls of that high-school where everyone is taller he is but he somehow knows all the answers. He felt alone without him there.

 

Even when he picked him up to drive him to the grocery store to buy whatever food he can with his mother’s welfare checks, Spencer still wasn’t sure if he forgave him for leaving him alone. Even if Tommy doesn’t ever bother him again.

 

When he turns 18. Spencer doesn’t see why he gets upset when Spencer tries to hold his hand in the library where they’re both hunched over a computer screen looking at colleges. Spencer doesn’t understand why he doesn’t sneak into his room and hold him like he used to. But Spencer can’t work up the nerve to ask. Because he thinks it must be his fault.

 

They write letters back and forth, for years when he goes off to college and Spencer stays to go to college here so he can still take care of his mother. He doesn’t come to see him. Not until Spencer is eighteen and he sends his mom away and Spencer has to beg him to come hold him. He cries into the phone for hours as he drives across several state lines to be with him.

 

He held Spencer in his arms until Spencer runs out of tears and they spend the next day cleaning the house. Classical jazz music flows through the house, and through Spencer's veins as they dance around collecting all of the books into various piles by author and time period and Spencer goes on and on about random knowledge that he knows.

 

That night they lie on the roof and they make a plan. He wants to be in the FBI and Spencer would follow him anywhere he goes.

 

So they make it to Quantico, and Spencer can’t help but smile when he sees him at the airport. He can tell something is wrong. He’s learned to pick up social cues now, kind of.

 

Spencer’s smile fades and he asks him what’s wrong. He doesn’t answer.

 

They spend the rest of the day picking out a cozy little apartment that is an easy ride from Quantico and go back to their hotel room for the night.

 

The next morning when Spencer wakes up he’s alone and there’s a note next to the bed. Spencer cries but he manages to pull himself up by his bootstraps and goes to training even though the words bad timing keep repeating into the back of his mid.

 

Even though the words scrawled on the paper sting.

 

_In another universe we’re soulmates, but here the timing is just a little wrong. I’m sorry._

 

The drugs give him the courage to go see him in New Orleans and this time Spencer gets it. They don’t kiss this time. They hardly smile. Because Spencer knows that the timing is off once again, and it probably always will be.

  
  
He fell in love with a girl once. If he believed in soulmates, statistically it was a probable that he’d have more than one so it makes sense. But he didn’t believe in them and he didn’t have time to fall in love.

 

The way that she writes brought a smile to his face. The way her voice sounded on her phone made him feel bubbly and happy on the inside.

 

He knew she was beautiful before he even laid eyes on her.

 

She told him the timing is bad when he first asked to meet her after months of paper exchanges and phone calls until he fell  asleep with the phone pressed against his ear. She asked him to go to a phone booth and he asks four gas station attendants and a library worker where the nearest one is because he knows statistically that there are some, but he can’t remember where one is.

 

When he called  she told him all about her situation with her stalker. They spend all night talking about cases that Spencer has had and him giving her advice until Spencer starts to fall asleep against the glass window of the phone booth in a part of the city he doesn't recognize.

 

He starts keeping change in his pockets, and rolling it around in his hands when no one is looking to remind himself that there’s something to look forward to at the end of a hard case. His headaches are pretty much gone thanks to her and he starts to feel happy on the inside again.  

 

He read her favorite books just to get a taste of her and imagined the way that her voice will sound reading those words aloud.He asked her what kind of shampoo she uses, what kind of perfume she likes so he can imagine the way that she would smell pressed up against him in a lonely hotel room.

 

He’s so close to meeting her so many times but he won’t take bad timing for an answer this time so he doesn’t give up. He refused to take bad timing for an answer again. He’s determined to meet her and get his happy ending.

 

But sometimes, even determination doesn’t mean that things work out in your favor.

 

He doesn’t know what to do with himself after he comes home from the case. He calls her number and leaves her messages until her voice mailbox is full just to her her answering machine message. Just to hear her voice.

He reads her favorite books again but he can’t imagine her smell. All he can imagine is the way that she looked on the ground lying in a pool of her own blood.

 

He cried. He read the books again. He cried some more and cursed bad timing under his breath.

  
  


He falls in love with another boy. He didn’t mean to fall, but he can’t help it. It would be irresponsible of him to even try anything, and he still doesn’t believe in soul mates, but he’s learned his lesson about bad timing.

 

Every time his fingers brush through Spencer’s hair Spencer falls a little bit harder. Touches Spencer Spencer can’t forget the way that it feels. Hours later when he’s alone he traces the outline of the touch on his body. He wonders if he does the same.

 

He wants to tell him how he feels, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it until it’s too late. They spend years pining for each other but in the end bad timing gets the best of it.

 

He whispers I love you into Spencer’s neck and he doesn’t even have hear it. Bad timing wins and he leaves the BAU shortly after to be with his wife a kid and Spencer doesn’t blame him.

  


The next time he falls in love he doesn’t even hope. He doesn’t even daydream. He doesn’t even let the attractive boy with the cutest dog spencer has ever seen overwhelm his thoughts because he knows and he still doesn’t believe in soul mates. But maybe he should.

 

The team spent an afternoon out on the town. They manage to escape and take a walk, outside of the bar they walked past a few shops neither one of them said anything until they come across a group of protesters holding ‘God h8’s fags’ signs.

 

He grinned, “They have good timing.”

 

Spencer raised an eyebrow at him, thoroughly confused. But he takes Spencer by the hand and dragged him across the street. He pressed their lips together and pulled Spencer into the kiss gently, Spencer moved willingly into his strong arms. At first, he was surprised, but he melted into the kiss and let him stick his tongue into Spencer’s mouth.

 

People booed in the background but Spencer could care less. He gives the protesters the finger and Spencer giggled into his lips.

 

“I’ve wanted to do that since I met you,” he whispers.

 

Suddenly his earlier comment clicked.

Spencer doesn’t know how to express himself. He can’t find the words to tell Luke why he’s wary so he writes him a letter. He writes everything, pages and pages of memories, and tear stained ink are ripped from a notebook and shoved inside of an envelope to be left on his desk the next morning.

 

Later he shows up at Spencer’s apartment with chinese take out and he spends the rest of his night telling Spencer about his past encounters with love.

 

He tells Spencer about that girl he grew up with. The one that was supposed to be his soulmate because their parents were best friends, until she got pregnant at seventeen and decided that she’d rather spend the rest of her life with the baby daddy. He tells Spencer how he was secretly relieved when she told him, because he didn’t even like girls but didn’t know how to tell her. He tells him that maybe in another universe they’d be together.

 

Spencer plants a kiss on his lips and tells him that he’d glad they don’t live in that universe.

 

He tells Spencer about that boy he fell in love with while he was in the army, before don’t ask don’t tell was repealed.

 

He tells Spencer about that boy that he planned to run away with and marry in another state because gay marriage was still illegal in arizona, and how that boy didn’t want to leave.

 

And he tells him about how when he’d moved here he’d adopted Roxy because his boyfriend wanted a dog, and how he got stuck with her when that boy broke up with him. How they managed to mend their relationship to take joint care of Roxy now, but how Roxy had always loved Luke more anyway.

 

And, Spencer asked him if he believed in soulmates.

 

Luke Alvez shrugged and pulled Spencer in for a deep kiss. “What do you think?”

  
Spencer bit his lip and tries to push rationality away, even  if just for a second. “I think I might.”


End file.
